We Rise Again
by Tenshi no Kijutsu
Summary: AU. Sakura is an archaeologist. She's working at a site and comes across a skeleton - the body of a long-forgotten king, Li Syaoran. She has also triggered an ancient spell. What dangers has she brought upon herself and her family?
1. Chapter 1

We Rise Again by Tenshi no Kijutsu

--

_"Sakura, please. Please, follow all your dreams and never give up. Do your best in life. Remember, you can do anything if you believe in it enough."_

Sakura shuddered. She was on a plane, off to fulfill those words. They had been the last words of her father, after a car crash when she was in fifth grade. Then they were the last words of her brother, who was shot two years ago in a drive-by shooting. Both had died in the hospital. These words would forever haunt her.

Sakura Kinomoto Hsu was twenty-four years old and had recently gotten her master's degree in archaeology. She had already gone through one marriage to Lewis Hsu, a Chinese-American who had been born into a Chinese family in America but moved to China and then Japan as an adult. Most of the time these days Sakura didn't bother with her married name. Lewis had died recently of cancer, which he had been fighting since childhood. He had died in a coma and never had the chance to tell her goodbye. She found out only a few days later that she was pregnant with their second child.

The little light came on with a soft beep that told passengers to put their seatbelts on. It was time for the plane to land in Hong Kong. Sakura was heading to a remote area in China that had not yet been excavated. She wanted nothing more than to live up to her father's example, and his hopes for her future. Finally, she was only hours away from the only place where she believed she could make a major discovery. She buckled her seat belt and sighed, waiting for the impact of wheels on the landing strip. She quietly checked on her two children, both in car seats and one on each side. They were her beloved daughters, Hanamizuki and Suzuran. Like Sakura, they had names of flowers. Hana's name meant dogwood and Suzu's name meant lily-of-the- valley.

--

**LOG - KINOMOTO SAKURA DAY 1**

_Ah, here at last. It's wonderful here. The prep team has already built the shelters, and they're not bad for temporary structures. They've marked off the spots they believe to be the most promising. We hope to start the digging in a couple of days. We're waiting for two others to arrive. If they're not here soon, then we'll start without them. We only have a two-month permit to work here. It's hardly anything, but it's all we could get from the authorities._

The other experts and I have been discussing what we might find. There haven't been many findings in this area, and some of the people here are a bit resentful of getting such a "hopeless" site. We're not really expected to find much more than a couple of pottery sherds. Oh well, I'd be glad to find anything on my first real dig.

The girls really like it here. Now that Suzu is three and a half, she's walking on her own and I'm lucky I've already potty-trained her. Hana is almost five and so she's all over the place. I'm glad 

_that they enjoy it here and they know where everything is. The rest of the people here seem to like the girls. They watch them and laugh sometimes. I'll really miss them when they have to start school. Hana's starting just next year. I should get back to my work._

--

"You know, this is really getting annoying," Sakura said with a sigh. Nobody had found anything in the past week. One week out of only eight was already gone. "This is just ridiculous."

"Yeah, but you know, at least you got a site right out of school. Didn't you notice you're the youngest one here? All of us have been waiting years for a paying excavation like this," the woman next to her replied. She looked about five years older than Sakura. She had long violet hair and pretty eyes. Her skin was pale and a bit sunburned from being outside all day for the past week. She didn't look much like an "outdoor girl."

"I guess so. How old are you, then? Oh, I'm so impolite. My name's Sakura Kinomoto, what was yours again? I know we were all introduced the first day and all, but I'm terrible at remembering names."

"It's quite all right. My name is Tomoyo Daidouji Hiiragizawa. I'm twenty-eight, and I've got four kids and a husband back home in Tokyo."

"Oh, you live in Japan too? I've been in Tokyo since I started college, but I come from Tomoeda."

"Well, we have three houses," Tomoyo clarified, ducking her head modestly. "There's the one in Tokyo, the one in Hong Kong, and the one in London. I'm Japanese, Eriol's English, and he's got close relatives in Hong Kong. Right now they're in the process of moving to Hong Kong so that they can visit me here. He's worried about me since I'm four months along with number five."

"Congratulations, Tomoyo! I've got my two girls and that's quite enough for me to do alone." Sakura smiled. It was nice to make a friend that she had something in common with.

"Oh, thank you. Are you really a single mom? I'm so sorry."

"My husband, Lewis Hsu, died three and a half years ago right before I found out I was pregnant with Suzuran."

"Oh, that's awful! At least you have the girls though, right? There's nothing like a child to remind you how to find joy in the simple things. I'll have to show you pictures of my children sometime," Tomoyo said with a small smile.

"No need for that, Tomoyo," a man's voice called out. He was tall with blue hair and blue eyes. He carried two young boys, one under each of his strong arms, and was followed by a little girl and a little boy.

"Eriol! You're here! And with the children!" Tomoyo squealed, running over to him and hugging her family "Sakura, this is my husband Eriol Hiiragizawa and our children. The oldest is Aster, she's eight. Then Shino is six. Shuang is five and then Xing is three."

"Nice to meet you all. It's interesting that Shino has a Japanese name, Aster has an English name, and the other two have Chinese names. Why is that?" Sakura asked. Tomoyo blushed.

"Their names are of the nation in which they were conceived," Eriol said with a smile as Tomoyo smacked his arm lightly in embarrassment. "The new baby is going to be named Maude if it's a girl or Laramie if it's a boy. We were visiting friends in Paris at the time."

"Ah, I guess that makes sense," Sakura replied with a laugh. She noticed Hana and Suzu watching shyly from a few yards away. "Come here, girls. This is Eriol, and you know Tomoyo, I'm sure. These are their children, Aster, Shino, Shuang, and Xing. Everyone, these are my daughters. Hanamizuki is almost five and Suzuran is three and a half. I call them Hana and Suzu." Everyone smiled and the children began to talk to each other and make friends. They soon ran off in a game of tag.

"So, dear, how has it been going?" Eriol asked Tomoyo.

"Not so good. Absolutely nothing all week, not even a false alarm with one of the trainees. Unbelievable."

"Oh, that's too bad. Well, it's time I got to the real reason I came here," he said, his cheerful expression fading. He turned and the couple walked a few steps away, but Sakura could still hear them too easily to ignore.

"You know our cousin in Hong Kong, Li Meilin? Well, it seems that the Li Clan will be gone soon. She got in a car accident yesterday. I knew that you wouldn't have gotten the news yet all the way out here, so I came to tell you in person. I won't lie, the doctors don't think she'll make it more than a couple of weeks, months at best," Eriol said seriously. His cheerful face was now in the shape of a frown. Tomoyo's grin faded into a grimace as Eriol's news sunk in.

"Oh, Meilin-chan! She's only our age, she can't die! This is so horrible! I have to see her. Is she responsive?"

"No, Tomo-chan. She's in a coma. Her brain activity does go up when someone speaks or touches her, so she seems to be aware of what's going on, but her nervous system isn't working. If she manages to live, Meilin will probably be paralyzed or severely disabled for the rest of her life. All because some guy was high in the driver's seat. He's doing much better, although that rubs salt into the wound in a way."

Sakura approached them slowly, a little embarrassed to have overheard such a sensitive conversation. "Tomoyo, you need to go visit your cousin. I don't think anything will happen for the next couple of days. Anyway, the trainees will be here all this week. Take some days off, we'll manage."  


Tomoyo looked at her with tears in her eyes. "Really, Sakura? Thank you so much! You have no idea how much this means to me!"

Sakura just smiled weakly. "You'd be surprised. I went through this when my father, brother, and husband passed on, each at a different time, of course. I know exactly how much this means to you and you're very welcome. Now hurry along, the sooner you leave the sooner you can get to see her."

Tomoyo, Eriol, Aster, Shino, Shuang, and Xing left in a large limousine shortly afterwards. Sakura explained to the rest of the staff why Tomoyo had taken the next few days off.

--

**LOG - KINOMOTO SAKURA DAY 14**

_There still seems to be nothing to be found. It's amazing that we've been here two weeks and haven't uncovered a single thing. I don't know if it's our own faults or if this site is just useless. The girls have started helping out. They have little plastic wheelbarrows they move dug-up dirt with. They love to mimic the team. One of the workers had his wife bring the wheelbarrows in for them. They used to belong to his two sons when they were little._

Tomoyo returned late last night. Xing, her youngest son, has returned with her. He missed her so much that she decided he could hang out with Hana and Suzu while she works. And if he wants to go home, his father is only a few hours away. She seems very upset about her cousin Meilin and I can only hope that the girl gets better, although it seems very unlikely. Tomoyo was comforted a bit when she learned that my father died in a car accident similar to Meilin's. But then she cried more since he had not survived, and that probably meant that Meilin wouldn't either.

I feel so horrible right now. It seems the only things going right in my life are the girls. I miss Lewis a lot on days like this, but I have to admit that as my memory slowly ebbs away, so does my strong feeling of love. It scares me to think that I can stop loving Lewis after everything. Well, this book isn't supposed to be a journal, it's supposed to be a log of what's going on at the site.  
  
_One of the trainees, Sasaki Rika, seems to be slacking off lately to hang out with one of the other experts, Terada Yoshiyuki - not that he minds. And the two trainees Mihara Chiharu and Yamazaki Takashi seem to be in love. I feel kind of bad for the other trainee - Yanagizawa Naoko. She's all by herself when her coworkers go off in pursuit of romance. But she's a very dedicated worker and I'm proud to have her training under our team._

All I can do now is hope that we'll find something soon. Even something insubstantial would boost morale. It's time to put the girls to bed.

--


	2. Chapter 2

We Rise Again by Tenshi No Kijutsu

Chapter Two

--

The day after Tomoyo's return, things began turning up at the site. They'd moved from their first "spot of interest" to the second, and it wasn't long before the grid was set up that the excavators began shouting in excitement. Sakura herself discovered a carved stone figurine of a quality not previously known to the region. The whole crew was buzzing with hope for what else they might find.

Days passed and more artifacts were unearthed. The trainees began working in the makeshift lab – a couple of collapsible tables set up under a white tarp suspended from a pole at each end. Everything was photographed, mapped, drawn, cleaned, and catalogued. By the fourth day, they had begun boxing the finds. That evening, a trainee drove off with some of the boxes to take back to the university that was funding the excavation. He would be back the next day, and then someone else would take another load.

The team found a lot of pottery, though most of it was broken. There were bits of jewelry, some chunks of metal from armor and weapons, and other debris of settlement. They'd gotten down several feet in just a couple of days, working in shifts. Everyone was so excited that they worked harder than ever before.

On Sunday, Eriol arrived with the other three children. The workers were lazing around the site, anxious to work but not allowed to. A few of them were entertaining themselves with Hana and Suzu, who had yet to grow bored of the site. They were delighted at the extra attention, actually, because they'd felt a little left out since the crew started to find things.

"Eriol, love!" Tomoyo exclaimed as he emerged from his car. The limo was gone, in favor of a large black SUV, similar to the ones used by the experts at the site but much classier and more expensive. Eriol grinned as the children ran to their mother and were showered with affection. He snuck in a quick kiss among them, then swept up Xing into his arms, tickling the little boy until he squealed with laughter.

"How's Meilin?" Tomoyo asked when Eriol had set the boy down and the children had run off to join Hana and Suzu. Though she'd been perfectly enthusiastic all week, Sakura could see the pain clearly on her face at the thought of her cousin.

Eriol made an indecisive face. "Better and worse," he eventually replied. "Her body's healing as well as can be expected, but there is concern about her brain now. She had a few 

nearly-conscious moments of brain activity but was still unresponsive. Then she had a seizure during one and they're worried that she's experienced more brain damage than they thought. The doctors are giving her drugs to keep her in a coma until they know what's wrong."

Tomoyo's face fell. She settled heavily back onto the bench next to Sakura, who wrapped an arm around her friend's shoulders. The other woman leaned into her, and Sakura patted her back comfortingly. "It'll be all right, Tomoyo," she said, though she knew how hopeless it might really be. The purple-haired woman took a deep breath and pieced herself back together again. Sakura knew she was preparing herself to be strong for her children. She herself had become well-practiced in prioritizing over these past few years.

"Why is everyone just sitting around?" Eriol asked, taking a seat next to his wife, who pulled his hand into hers. Sakura settled back into her seat.

"It's Sunday. There's some legal matter where we can't work more than so many hours a week. We stretch it by working in shifts every other day, but we're required to take a day off. The trainees aren't paid so we could theoretically make them work, but we wouldn't be allowed to supervise them. The result is that we spend the day twiddling our thumbs and itching to get back to work," she explained.

"That sucks," Eriol commiserated. Hana, Suzu, and the Hiiragizawa girl, Aster.

"Mama," Hana said, putting her hands on Sakura's knees and adorably leaning on them to get closer to her mother. "Aster wants to see the hole but I thought we should ask first. Can we go in it?"

"Was my idea!" Suzu protested loudly in her babyish voice. She pouted even as her mother kissed the top of her head and smiled in amusement.

"Sure we can go in. But you have to promise to watch where you step and not touch anything, okay?" Sakura told them. All three girls nodded enthusiastically and followed her towards the trench.

The trench had gotten deep enough that a stepladder had been placed upon some wooden boards at one corner so that everyone could get in and out. Sakura went halfway down it and lifted her daughters down into the trench, then moved aside to let Aster climb down.

There were a series of wooden planks that snaked around the floor of the trench, avoiding the artifact-rich areas. "You have to walk on these boards, okay, or else you might break 

something and then dinosaurs will come and eat you!" Sakura told the girls. Aster rolled her eyes but the littler girls solemnly nodded and shuffled their feet closer to the center of the plank they were standing on.

Walking a few feet away to a place where the boards went along the wall, Sakura pointed out the different layers of soil that could be seen on the wall. "Look here, how it's really light on top and then the colors change in a few places. That tells us that different things were happening right here at different times. This really dark layer is from when they grew plants here, and then this lighter layer above it is when nobody lived here."

The girls studied the wall carefully. A number of the workers had gathered up around the top of the trench, watching the lesson with amusement.

"What made the yellow part?" Aster asked, gesturing at a large oval of golden sand in the middle of the wall.

"A really long time ago a little river ran through here. It carried sand into the area and took out some of the native soil. That's why it's right in the middle of the other layers. In that layer we found a lot of little pebbles that were smoothed by the water flowing over them."

Sakura took the girls a little ways away, and showed them one of the most interesting spots so far. The tops of two small vessels emerged from the ground, sealed with clay. A tiny box was partially unearthed beside them.

"See this, girls?" Sakura said, squatting down low to the ground. "We think that somebody buried these here and meant to come back for them. Bad guys were coming from another town, you see, so they had to run away really fast. They couldn't carry everything with them, so they buried important things before they left."

Suzu squatted down beside her mother, examining the trio with interest. "Why didn't they put in their blankies?" she finally asked. Sakura smiled and she heard a number of chuckles from the workers up outside the trench.

"I think that when they came back, they decided they didn't need these things anymore so they just took their blankies and left this stuff," she told her little girl. Suzu nodded as if this made perfect sense to her and stood up.

Terada Yoshiyuki, who was the best cook and therefore delegated to the job by popular opinion, bellowed out, "LUNCH IS READY!" Everyone made their way to the tarp-shaded 

picnic tables that served as a dining room. Sakura took the girls carefully out of the trench and they all headed off to eat together.

The next day, Eriol took all of his kids home and everyone else happily returned to work. Unfortunately, Hana wasn't feeling well and Sakura decided that her role as parent was more important than that of excavator. She stayed in and napped with her daughter. When dinnertime came, Hana was feeling well enough to eat with everyone else outside.

All the workers fawned over the five-year-old, giving her little treats and extra attention. Sakura, confident that her daughter was well cared-for, walked off alone towards the trench. Today they had found a stone slab – made of a stone that couldn't have come from anywhere nearby. The idea had been mentioned that it might be the top of a tomb, or perhaps the first step of a staircase leading to one like in Egypt.

As she stared down at the plastic sheet protecting the stone from whatever the night might bring, she had a moment to think. She thought of Lewis and how he would love to see the girls as they were today, flourishing and curious. She remembered the last time Suzu had asked a male friend of hers if he could be their new daddy – something she inevitably asked any grown man that she befriended. Sakura had never felt love for anyone like she did for Lewis. She didn't quite believe that there was no one else out there for her, but she doubted her ability to find another man like him.

Eventually the sun finished setting and everyone settled in for the night. Hana had started a game of tag after dinner and was worn out despite all of her napping. Sakura, on the other hand, tossed and turned in her cot for an hour or so before giving up on sleep altogether.

Sakura headed to the kitchen and downed some cold coffee, deciding that if she were awake it might as well be completely. While she sat in a lawn chair looking at the bright full moon, she regretted missing her time in the trench today. It occurred to her suddenly that she could spend her extra waking hours working.

She picked up a bucket and tossed in a trowel, brush, gloves, and a flashlight. She climbed down the ladder and passed the empty hole where the "buried treasure" had been before the excavators removed it earlier that day. She sat down gently on the soil next to the stone slab and ran her bare hands over it. It was cold in the dark night and she immediately felt wide awake. A strange desire came over and she immediately set to work around the stone.

Hours passed. She had sifted many buckets of removed soil and uncovered a number of stone steps without really being conscious of her actions. It wasn't until she realized that she had reached the bottom step and uncovered the entire stairway and door that it 

occurred to her that one person shouldn't have been able to do so much work so quickly. She pushed the thought aside, however, and studied the door.

It was architecturally simple, a rectangular panel with a surprisingly intact metal ring to serve as doorknob. The decorations, though, were exquisite. She couldn't read what was written across the top, but guessed that it was a name because of its brevity. The door was carved into broad geometric panels with intricate, lacelike carvings within them. They were almost wild in a way, just barely keeping to a pattern. The door still had traces of red, purple, and gold paint on it. It was regal, strong, and definitively masculine.

As the first fingers of dawn reached above the horizon line, Sakura forgot everything she had learned at school in this moment of awe. An irresistible need to open the door filled her, blocking out all else. In a daze, she picked up and switched on her flashlight. With her free hand, she reached towards the ring.

Her fingers clasped around the metal and something compelled her arm to pull. It took some effort but she hardly noticed. The door opened and musty air spilled out. Sakura stepped in. Her flashlight illuminated a sudden glint of gold, and then went out without a flicker. Despite the last dregs of moonlight and the first blushes of sunrise, everything before Sakura suddenly went black.


End file.
